SpaceX will launch 53 of its Starlink web satellites to orbit early Thursday morning (Feb. 2), and you may watch the motion dwell.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 53 Starlink craft is scheduled to elevate off from NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle in Florida on Thursday at 2:43 a.m. EST (0743 GMT).
Watch it dwell right here at Area.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company (opens in new tab). Protection is anticipated to start about 5 minutes earlier than launch.
Associated: 10 weird things about SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites
If all goes based on plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come down for a vertical touchdown at sea on SpaceX’s droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas round eight minutes and 45 seconds after launch.
Will probably be the fifth liftoff and touchdown for this specific booster, based on a SpaceX mission description (opens in new tab). The rocket additionally launched one other huge batch of Starlink satellites (the corporate didn’t say which one, and there have been many); SpaceX’s CRS-24 cargo mission to the International Space Station in December 2021; Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13F telecom satellite in October 2022; and the OneWeb 1 flight in December 2022.
OneWeb 1 despatched 40 web satellites to orbit for OneWeb. The London-based firm signed launch contracts with SpaceX and the industrial arm of India’s nationwide space company after its deal to fly on Russian-built Soyuz rockets fell aside final yr within the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
SpaceX has now launched two missions for OneWeb; the second lifted off on Jan. 9.
Thursday’s launch would be the eighth of 2023 already for SpaceX and its fourth of the yr dedicated to Starlink, the corporate’s large and ever-growing constellation of broadband satellites.
SpaceX has launched more than 3,800 Starlink satellites (opens in new tab) so far. However the firm has permission to loft 12,000 of the web craft, and it has utilized for approval to deploy a further 30,000 Starlink satellites on high of that.
All Starlink satellites so far have flown aboard Falcon 9 rockets, however that would change quickly. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has mentioned that the corporate will rely totally on its large Starship automobile to loft the bigger next-generation Starlink 2.0 spacecraft.
Starship stays in improvement, nevertheless it may make its debut orbital take a look at flight quickly, perhaps by the end of February.
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e-book concerning the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).